ABSTRACT
THE Jewish people throughout the ages of its dispersion has been noted for its tenacious adherence to a religion of its own, known as the Jewish religion or Judaism. It is this religion which in the eyes of the world has chiefly distinguished it from other peoples. But in its own eyes what has chiefly distinguished it is not so much the religion as the possession of certain books from which the religion itself was derived by an intensive process of study and analysis. The subject-matter of these books in so far as it formed the source of the religion was called torah; and in treating of the Jewish religion it is necessary first to give some idea of the significance of this term for the Jewish people.
